Thursday, March 12, 2009

How to get rid of Canadian geese - You can not kill them

My wife, who is not as patient as I am, basically feels that the best way to get rid of geese is to kill them. Of course she does not want to kill the geese herself she wants me to kill the geese. I’m guessing that though she would rather have me kill them, she actually would kill the geese herself if I didn’t stop her. She is a very clean person and the mess from the geese really bothers her a lot more than it does me.

The first issue is that it is a federal crime to kill geese. I have read this in several places and I’m pretty sure that it is true. There is something about a treaty between the U.S. and Canadian governments (really, look it up) that makes it a U.S. crime to kill Canadian geese.

The other problem is that there are a lot of consequences of killing them. The first obviously is what to do with the dead geese. We actually had one die on our lawn last year and we had a big debate as to what to do with the dead goose. Geese are not small birds and the carcass weighed about 20 pounds. It was difficult, but with a couple of shovels we managed to get it into a garbage bag. In the end we dumped it at the town dump but did not tell anyone there was a dead goose in the bag. It looked like it might have been shot and we didn’t want to deal with the legal issues even though we didn’t do it.

She really wants me to shoot the geese as a sort of revenge for all of the mess that they have left on the lawn. However I think that shooting the geese will attract a lot more attention from neighbors and officials than we want to deal with. Also, I am not that good a shot so I would have to use a shotgun and that could conceivably leave goose parts that we would have to deal with, and we are back to dealing with the dead geese.

The other thing my wife has suggested is putting out poison for the geese. Even though that may pass off the dead goose problem to the neighbors, there is the risk that the poison will impact other wildlife, and of course animal poison is not a good thing to have around children.

For me the worst case scenario of killing the geese is that we would use poison and them come back to the lake house after a week or two and find dead and rotting geese on the lawn. As my wife points out it would be a one time problem, but it would be a lot worse than picking up the goose poop from the lawn.

So as much as I want to get rid of the Canadian geese I have not yet reached the point where I am willing to kill the geese to get rid of them.

8 comments:

  1. Just thought I'd let you know our results. We live on a 4 acre lake and have 3 "families" of geese that return every year and make our yard their personal dumping ground. Nothing has worked until I bought a "Flambeau" coyote decoy. It's 3 dimentional and very life like. My hope was to just keep them out of our yard but it has keep them off the lake entirely for about 2 months now. Occasionally they come back, see the coyote, and leave. It has succeeded our expectations. The ducks, however, have no fear at all. They sit right down beside it. They are either smarter and know it's a fake or dumber and don't know to be afraid of a coyote. Either way, we like the ducks and are glad they have stuck around. Maybe your geese are smarter than ours but I would highly recommend that anyone having a problem with geese give the coyote decoy a try.

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  2. Good luck to you. I have also been fighting a goose problem for the past five years. I live in an apartment complex across from a small pond. Last year, I think we topped out at about 60 geese. It was a nightmare, as the pond ended up covered with green feces and smelled horrible. It would not have been a problem, if the geese stayed on the side where the pond is. But I live in an area where people are dumb enough to think that if they don't feed them, then they will starve! So they continously waddle back and forth across the street. Delaying work traffic and pooping on my patio. Imagine the anger of having to deal with a 40-60 geese parade after a hard day's work. I eventually bought one of those coyote decoys, and I also use a repellent. As long as I change the position of the decoy, I can keep them at bay for a few short days, but every so often, I come home to find a few feeding next to the decoy. I clearly understand your frustration, as I see geese as nothing more than big rats with wings. I wish you luck.

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  3. Don, I hope this year of the goose battle has gone better for you. I'm a big fan of getting the geese population under control or completely eradicated.

    I found your blog through a google search, and I'm just curious if you get much google adword income from the ads that show up on your site. I clicked through a few of the links and they all seem pretty helpful for anti-goose individuals.

    Please drop me an email at bob.boyan@gmail.com and let me know. Thanks

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  4. No offence but you sound like a wimp and your wife wears the pants in the house .

    Be a man for heaven sakes and take care of the problem ..

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  5. Some birds like Gesse are becoming major issues for some countries still we can use fight control plus to stop them.
    --
    Goose Management

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  6. I ready to get rid of the geese in my yard and can deal with dead birds. Do you know of a feed that has poison in it that will kill them quickly?

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